Dalton ran for parliament unsuccessfully in 2015 and 2017 as an independent with the support of the
Country Party of Australia and for the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party, respectively. In March 2019, Dalton won the seat of Murray by a 26.2-point swing, breaking 35 years of National Party incumbency. argued for a royal commission into the Murray Darling Basin Plan, and pushed for better rural health and hospital services. She has continued to raise these themes as a state MP. Her maiden speech in NSW parliament highlighted the rapid decline in service provision and living standards across rural NSW. Dalton has written a bill to improve transparency on who owns water in NSW The Bill would have forced all state MPs to declare their water interests, and provided for a public water register allowing the public to search for the names of companies and individuals who own water. The legislation passed the NSW Upper House, but was opposed by the NSW Government, who voted it down in the lower house. She has frequently clashed with government MPs in state parliament, notably former Health Minister
Brad Hazzard and Water Minister
Melinda Pavey, who has labelled Dalton a "disgrace". Former Deputy Premier
John Barilaro called her a "disgusting human" on Twitter. A parliamentary speech Dalton gave on the destruction of family farms across Australia has been viewed more than 330,000 times. She has also criticised excessive foreign ownership of Australian water and farmland, and campaigned for mental health services in the bush. On 3 March 2022, Dalton resigned from the Shooters Fishers and Farmers after disagreeing with the party's Legislative Council members' failure to show up to vote against a bill regarding water usage that she believed would "disadvantage communities and irrigators in the lower Darling and Murray river system". In February 2026, Dalton was viewed as a potential candidate for the
2026 Farrer by-election, with Dalton claiming that her mobile phone "has been burning up" since the resignation of
Sussan Ley. ==Personal life==